


The First Journal

by SectoBoss



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Diary/Journal, Episode: s02e12 A Tale of Two Stans, Gen, Paranoia, Possession, Strange Dreams, what Stanford didn't mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4377596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SectoBoss/pseuds/SectoBoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanford Pines filled three journals with his research into the anomalies of Gravity Falls. But he also kept a diary, a personal journal containing the story of his time in the backwoods of Oregon. In it, he detailed his investigation of the unexplained, his work on the portal – and how everything went so horribly wrong. And along the way he discovered something very important: in Gravity Falls, there really is no-one you can trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Journal

**Author's Note:**

> My first Gravity Falls fanfiction! It was born from me wondering just how Stanford went from ambitious researcher to paranoid lunatic in A Tale of Two Stans, and I figured the answer would probably involve Bill somewhere along the line. In Gravity Falls, it usually does.  
> Hope you all like it!

_11 th November, 1981  
_

Well. Here we go.

The last of my belongings are packed. The car’s parked outside. Tomorrow I start the engine and take the interstate north, up to Oregon. To Gravity Falls. Journey shouldn’t be too bad – they’re threatening more snow on the way, coming down from the Cascades, but I’ll be sticking to busy roads and I’ve packed a shovel just in case.

So now I’m just counting the minutes until the morning. Can’t sleep, of course! Too excited. So I’m writing this down in an old notebook I found when I was clearing out my apartment. After all, good scientists are supposed to keep journals and notebooks aren’t they? Maybe one day when I’m rich and famous I can write my autobiography from this – or, if I’ve really hit the big time, have someone else write my autobiography for me. You never know! Nobel Laureate Stanford Pines… got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Wind’s picking up outside. I wonder how close to finished the house will be when I get there? Spoke to the construction foreman on the phone this morning, he said it’d be liveable when I got there.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow everything changes.

 

* * *

 

_12 th November, 1981_

So this is Gravity Falls!

I don’t really know what I was expecting. But on the face of it, it’s just another sleepy little logging town. It got that feeling of being sandwiched between forests and rivers and mountains like the town fathers had to beg and borrow every last square foot they could. I’ve seen tens of other towns just like it from the interstate on the drive up here. You wouldn’t think this one is any different from the rest.

I’m writing this in my car, where I’m trying to get a few hours of sleep. That foreman was a filthy liar – my new house is nothing more than a timber skeleton! It’ll be another two weeks before I can move in! My best bet at this point is to try and find a decent motel in the morning.

Haven’t seen much out of the ordinary yet. Asked a few of the men on the construction site – swarthy types, looked like the sort to know a local legend or two – if they’d noticed anything ‘unusual’ out in the woods. They just avoided my gaze and muttered something about not knowing what I was talking about. I think that probably means ‘yes’! But I think it’s also a good reminder that small towns like this one take time to warm up to outsiders, especially ones who ask awkward questions.

Going to put this notebook in the back and try and get some rest now.

 

* * *

 

_7 th April, 1982_

Good grief! Look what I’ve just found nestled in one of the boxes I never unpacked!

It seems like a lifetime since I wrote those two entries above this one, but the dates show it’s only been a few months. So much has happened since then! I’ve discovered so much, and I’ve only scratched the surface of the tip of the iceberg!

This place, this Gravity Falls, is a nexus for the strange like no other. I’ve already filled one journal with the weird and wonderful things I’ve seen and discovered, and I’m halfway through a second. You can walk into these forests and practically trip over some new discovery within half an hour. It’s incredible!

Seeing as I am already filling out my journals, I have decided I will keep this notebook as a sort of ad-hoc diary, to be filled in as and when I remember. If the journals record what I discover, this dairy will record anything else of note that happens during my time here.

 

* * *

 

_25 th April, 1982_

As my discoveries mount up, and I look towards purchasing a third journal, my mind turns inexorably towards the origin of all the anomalies that dot this particular corner of Oregon. I have been so caught up in discovering and cataloguing them, I sometimes forget to wonder as to where they all actually come from. After all, I have witnessed things that by all the known laws of biology, chemistry and physics should be utterly impossible – and yet, there they are, before my very eyes!

There are a number of possible explanations, but my theorising as of late is drawing me towards one inexorable conclusion: the town of Gravity Falls is a ‘junction’ of some sorts, built on the fault line where one universe, one reality (our own) intersects tangentially with another or maybe even several others. Worlds where the laws of nature are different, or where history took a different course, bleeding into and mingling with ours in these few square miles of pine forest.

Which begs the question: if these anomalies can travel from their worlds to ours – is a return trip out of the question?

This is too big for me alone. I’m going to need some help. I’m going to need someone I can trust.

 

* * *

 

_29 th April, 1982_

Fantastic news! I rang Fiddleford this morning and he agreed almost straight away! I had worried it might be the devil’s own job to prise him away from his blasted circuit boards and microchips and whatever nonsense he’s wasting his time on now. But clearly there’s enough academic acumen in him still to recognise real science when it comes his way.

He’ll be about a week, and then we can get started. My ideas for a trans-dimensional portal are beginning to take shape, but I’ll need Fiddleford’s help if I’m to make any real progress. I’ll have to talk to the construction company about enlarging the basement – this is something I need to keep away from prying eyes. Confound it all, that mean’s I’ll have to ring up that idiot of a foreman again!

Perhaps while they’re here they can fix up the walls of this place. The wind whistles through them in strange ways sometimes. On occasion I even think it’s whispering for a few seconds! Hah! I must be getting cabin fever, all alone out here in the forest. Yet another reason why having my good friend here will do me some good.

 

* * *

 

_19 th May, 1982_

It’s been a while since I last wrote in here. We’ve been so busy, so much progress has been made! The portal, which seemed like such a faraway notion when I last wrote, is actually under construction! We mounted the harmonic dampeners today, and that was a job I’m glad is over. I understand the need to keep the portal perfectly steady with respect to the Earth’s gravitational field – of course I understand it, I did the mathematics which proved we needed it! – but the installation of what amounts to a two-ton shock absorber was certainly no easy feat.

Fiddleford’s proving to be a valuable colleague and friend in these exciting times. It’s good to have someone who shares my passion for our work.

The blasted construction company did nothing to plug up the walls, by the way. The noise of the wind is getting worse. I know it isn’t whispering, but by God it sounds like it sometimes! Fiddleford insists he can’t hear it, which is annoying me more than it should. But then he always was good at tuning out distractions when the moment called for it. Part of what makes him such a good scientist.

 

* * *

 

_8 th June, 1982_

It works!

We tested it this afternoon! On 14:23, on Tuesday 8th of June 1982, we activated the portal for the first time.

I can’t describe it in words, but for posterity I must try. Fiddleford graciously gave me the honour of throwing the switch. I probably should have said something dramatic or inspiring, something to define the moment by – my mind is crowded with ideas now, all far too late – but in the end all I could muster was a quiet “all right then”. All right then! What words to usher in a new age in scientific advancement with! A child could have done better.

I pulled the lever and for a moment all was silence. I remember the terror that it had not worked. And then, creeping up on my hearing, a rising-pitched whine: the overhead capacitors charging up! The buzz of the discharge coils, the whoosh-roar of the flux generators and then! Nothing but blinding light.

When I could see again… how to describe the emotions I felt? To gaze upon that puddle of blue light, suspended in the middle of our creation, and to know that we had succeeded: joy. Utter unbridled joy. We’ve done it! It works!

I can’t even being to imagine what we might find on the other side. Next week we will send something through.

Fiddleford’s gone to bed early, exhausted I don’t doubt. Me, I’m staying up and watching the late night news on the TV. I’m struck by how much our discovery could change everything: would we still be pointing nuclear warheads at the Russians, and them at us, if the whole world knew what I did? There is a new frontier now: the transdimensional. Infinite world, infinite resources, infinite space! Why squabble over Earth, when there are worlds beyond counting and beyond imagining?

Few can claim to have changed the world. Fewer can make that claim and have it ring true. But by God, if anyone has the right to that claim now, it is Fiddleford and I!

 

* * *

 

I don’t understand. Fiddleford is… he’s gone.

_17 th June, 1982_

There, that’s better. Got to keep the dates. Got to keep this in order.

But what’s the use, if I’m all on my own now? He left. He’s gone.

Calm down, Stanford. Write it down. It’ll help you get your thoughts in order.

I was supposed to be saving this whiskey for a celebration of our triumph as well. Guess that’s gone out of the window.

Where to start? We were preparing to send our first object through the portal. Fiddleford had gotten ahold of a crash test dummy and we decided to use that. It’d show us how the gravitational stresses and tidal forces would affect a human passing through it. We had it tied to a length of rope – a bit ad hoc but we’re on a budget. And the idiot got snagged on the rope as it got caught in the field! Got pulled right in with it!

He was only in there for a few seconds before I was able to yank him back out. He said something afterwards, I don’t remember what. And then he was ranting and raving about how our portal was dangerous, how it could end the world, how he suddenly wanted no part in our endeavour! He stormed out of the lab and began packing his belongings before I could even think to try and stop him.

And now he’s gone. I just don’t understand why! What did he see in there? What drove him to this? How could he turn his back on this after all we’ve done?

He’ll be back tomorrow. He must be. He’ll be sheepish and apologetic and I’ll apologise for losing my temper and we’ll be friends again and we’ll keep working on the portal.

I wish the wind would stop. Sounds like voices again. I know it isn’t. I know.

 

* * *

 

_18 th June, 1982_

He didn’t come back.

 

* * *

 

_1 st July, 1982_

It is clear to me now that Fiddleford isn’t coming back. But I can’t complete this portal, or continue my research, on my own. Oh, if only there were someone else I could turn to! Fiddleford was the one bright mind amongst all the dullards at university, and now he’s gone for good. Who else is there?

I need someone I can trust.

 

* * *

 

_6 th July, 1982_

As much as it pains me, I have decided to take a break from my research into the portal. My mind is stagnating, turning in on itself. I don’t feel like I’ve had an original thought in a week! There is still so much to be done – the tidal zones near the vortex throat need to be mapped, the power consumption issues need to be solved, I still need to send some analytical equipment through and actually see what is on the other side. But I need a break.

I shall search for some new anomalies, I think, but I will try a different track. Instead of gallivanting off into the woods, I will spend some time at the local library. Perhaps the newspaper archives hold some hints to new mysteries?

On one of my rare trips into town I bought some spackling paste to fill up the holes in the walls. Finally some peace and quiet!

 

* * *

 

_11 th July, 1982_

Three in the morning and I can’t sleep. It’s the same dream again.

It’s hard to remember it – already I can feel it fading – but I know I have had this dream before. There are symbols, a wheel of them, and I almost know their meanings but never quite manage it. There is a voice, a cheerful shout which I can never understand. And there is this strange… creature. A triangle with an eye, cartwheeling through my head.

But then I wake, like I have done now, and the dream fades. Must be stress getting to me. I’ll go down to the library in the morning. Find something new to research for a while.

 

* * *

 

_13 th July, 1982_

I have found the strangest book in the Gravity Falls library. It seems to have been written by someone with an interest in the town much like my own, although whoever the author was, they clearly didn’t have much of a scientific background. They talk instead of magic and demons and other superstitious nonsense. Summoning circles, ancient rituals, old magic – ridiculous! And yet…

The idea of summoning a creature, presumably from another dimension, seems to tie neatly back into my research on the portal. Perhaps I was foolish to give up hope so quickly!

The book even contains instructions for summoning such a creature. It seems like a worthwhile experiment.

 

* * *

 

I can’t believe it! This is too much to take in at once! Wait, hang on:

_15 th July, 1982_

There, the date. Mustn’t forget the date. Didn’t have one of my journals with me – sloppy! – so I have to write this in here.

It worked! The summoning worked! I think some part of the ritual must have been incomplete, though, for the… entity? Individual? Person? Whatever it was, it was not around for long. The whole world went grey, time seemed to slow and then this thing was dancing before my eyes – but only for a few seconds, before everything became normal again. We were able to exchange a few words – and it understood English! – before whatever connection we had was lost.

It was the creature from my dreams.

I must recreate the experiment, I must! This is a breakthrough that rivals the portal!

I just wish the damn whispering wind would stop! Feels like there’s someone in the shack with me on bad days – even though I know there isn’t.

I think.


End file.
